2021 Garden Thread

[Fish24/7]

Speaking of gold tomatoes, I found this beautiful plant sitting on my deck Monday. It was a gift from a neighbor. It has a few blossoms ,but it needs some flower  fuel. supposed to be gold cherries! Will know in a few weeks.

A lot of you are probably getting red ripe tomatoes now, and the next bunch is forming, or has been. Now is a good time to amend your soil. If you're using soil. I highly recommend flower fuel and cal mag plus. Cut back on the Nitrogen a little too. You'll notice a big difference in just a few days , with way more blossoms, and more and  bigger fruits. Tomato plants need the extra ca.,, Mag,, P ,,and K, especially if they are big plants and heavy feeders like mine.  Also picked up some more Ancient Earth nutrients (humic/fulvic acids) and some other organic water soluble products to use the rest of the season because I'm about out of  the Espoma bag stuff and at this stage the plants need a stronger fertilizer than the Espoma ratio numbers due to their size.

I increased the feeding schedule to twice a week now. Have been successful in preventing diseases and fungus so far this year, no blight , rot, rust, or yellow  leaves using just a simple Neem oil soak.  Been foliar feeding with just the cal mag bi weekly and watering in the just flower fuel once a week for now. Plants are as healthy as can be!

It's peak bug season now, every bug and critter that likes tomatoes are out so keep an close eye on your crop! When I thanked my neighbor for the plant I noticed he had about four different kinds of bugs on his plants. Last night I offered to spray them with a  Dawn soap and Neem mix and he agreed they needed some attention pronto. I've been have great results using just  a Neem soak in my garden. I use  1/2 tsp per litre and pour into the pots every other week at first when the mater plants are small and not yet producing blossoms, then when they are big  I'll use it 4x times a month at a ratio of 1tsp per litre . Neem oil actually has beneficial nutrients that are good for the plants and  has many beneficial uses in the garden. 

My cardinals are still taking care of the caterpillars for me. Yesterday they had their baby Cardinal with them teaching it how to hunt worms too.

Corn is doing wonderful, watered and fed it yesterday. Counted at least 40 ears now 😀

Watermelon are growing like crazy! There's already quite a few baby melons golf ball size,and the vines are growing a foot longer every day now. I've been using the same disease/pest preventative Neem soak on them, same flower fuel, cal mag and Ancient Earth,, only difference is the main food source is  an all purpose water soluble 20-20-20 fertilizer that has all the micro nutes already in it. I use a lower nitrogen number on my maters.

[BilletHead]

          Growing like gang busters here in the BilletHead garden,

   Everything got in a bit late for us. You all talking about cherry tomatoes. We have three plants in. Two gold cherry of some variety and one sweet 100 the tag said. Not sure if the yellow were sungold or not. Have eaten a couple of them and very tasty! 

    Three varieties of big tomatoes. Black Krim, Cherokee Purple and celebrity. Lots of fruit on the vine. Looking good. We never had one with blossom end rot this year. Had a gal tell us to try this and we did. Followed directions. She said need to use in raised beds and that is basically what our wicking tubs are,

  Oh my goodness we have peppers. Seven varieties,

                   After Lettice and cabbage pulled replaced with crook neck, straight neck and zucchini squash.  

    We have cucumbers too. Have them in side by side tubs. Trellis over them. Since @MOPanfisher had luck with them in tubs I thought I would give it a try. Picking  eaters daily now. My honeybees are all over the blossoms. Crazy on them. If I get pests on the plants the pests might get their way. No pest control because of my bee pets.

   Speaking of bees. What a deal I have gotten into. Started with two hives that made it fine over the winter. Well i wanted a few more. Built three hives. Caught open swarms and in swarm traps 11 colonies. Yes 11. now I have bees in 9 hives one hive of my long Langs has a colony in both ends. One of those will get an eviction notice and be transferred out to a friend close in town. Two of the Layens swarm traps a friend came down from Herman he and his wife stayed a couple days. We got up early one morning and retrieved them. They left in what I called the bee express. He went home and introduced those into his Layens he built this Spring. He had no luck trapping bees up there. A guy has to share freebees and was glad to. 

   The three long langs,

 The three standard  Langstroth hives,

         And then the three Layens hives. I will do three more this winter I hope in lumber drops a bit and plase out my standard Langstroth if they make it through the winter. 

  

     It is a zoo around here. Flora and fauna in sync I hope. Feeling blessed around here. 

[Quillback]

Where did you get that calcium nitrate?

Your garden looks great BTW!

[BilletHead]

17 minutes ago, Quillback said:

Where did you get that calcium nitrate?

Your garden looks great BTW!

             Thanks Jeff,

   We were in the MFA farm store telling the lady there how we were growing out tomatoes. She seemed to know a bunch about raised beds. Pointed to a display and said you need to try this. It is reccomented for pepper plants too. Easy to apply and working well. 

[Fish24/7]

Remember these Sugar Babies from a couple weeks ago or so,,,

Well,,,🤭

Absolutely loaded with melon blooms, already got 14 baby melons baseball sized and they are getting bigger every day and will need support soon so they don't break off.  There must be 90 or more smaller.There are sixteen watermelon plants in that raised bed. Four in each corner.

[Fish24/7]

Don't think I ever mentioned the cantaloupe patch before. Got one about ready to eat now, several smaller green ones still.

[Fish24/7]

Fresh picked this morning. Just to sample.

 

These sweethearts are amazing! I like them way better than the cocktail variety I grew last year. Had enough to feed myself and give some away and there's still hundreds more green lol. 

[Johnsfolly]

On 7/11/2021 at 12:19 PM, Fish24/7 said:

Don't think I ever mentioned the cantaloupe patch before. Got one about ready to eat now, several smaller green ones still.

We have a couple 'lopes currently at softball size. Last year they didn't get much bigger than that size, but we are growing in pots. They were tasty.

[Fish24/7]

The long wait is finally over!  

Starting to get some eaters now👍 picked these this morning to have with the sweet corn and pickles for tonights Bull Shoals catfish and bluegill fish fry

[Fish24/7]

It's pickles time again! Only have the one cucumber vine and it makes em short and fat